You may have been wondering why I was gone last week. Even if you were not wondering, you should have heard me talk about it in class. If not, I would suggest you start paying attention. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was a quality experience for me and my teammates for a number of reasons. It taught us how to work together to create, design, present and maneuver a working, almost fully functioning machine. A prime example of this was not when the robot was functioning, but was banged up from a previous round.
At the Las Vegas regional competition, we were on defense, trying to stop other teams on the opposing alliance from scoring points by placing inner tubes on “the rack”. A robot from the other team rammed our robot at full speed, knocking our ramps down, earning them and us a few penalties.
After that match, we wheeled the robot to the pit to fix any problems. At first it seemed that only the pneumatic piston that controlled the release of the ramps was loose. I then noticed that the frame was skewed by about an inch. Someone else noticed that the compressor had somehow fallen through the bottom of the robot. We had only 20 minutes to repair the robot, which required taking apart and putting back together almost the entire frame, while pushing the compressor back into the inside of the robot, and finally fixing the pneumatic arm. To make a long story short, we fixed it in time. We even were able to replace the battery. This very hard task was accomplished quickly and successfully through teamwork. The task would have been impossible for just a sole person but through good communication and teamwork, we did it.
So how does this story apply to English, other than being written for an English assignment? In our class we learned about what quality was and how people achieve quality thinking. In FIRST, everyone had to do quality thinking, not just to build the robot, but to work together. As corny as this sounds, it is true. That is what FIRST is really about. The founder of FIRST didn’t create the competition just to be about technology, but also to make young adults, like you and me, do quality thinking in a team with others.
All in all, FIRST was a great experience. Next year we will probably compete again, and there will be a Hawaii regional competition. I hope that you will consider either cheering us on in the bleachers or do some quality thinking with us.
You may have been wondering why I was gone last week. Even if you were not wondering, you should have heard me talk about it in class. If not, I would suggest you start paying attention. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was a quality experience for me and my teammates for a number of reasons. It taught us how to work together to create, design, present and maneuver a working, almost fully functioning machine. A prime example of this was not when the robot was functioning, but was banged up from a previous round.
At the Las Vegas regional competition, we were on defense, trying to stop other teams on the opposing alliance from scoring points by placing inner tubes on “the rack”. A robot from the other team rammed our robot at full speed, knocking our ramps down, earning them and us a few penalties.
So how does this story apply to English, other than being written for an English assignment? In our class we learned about what quality was and how people achieve quality thinking. In FIRST, everyone had to do quality thinking, not just to build the robot, but to work together. As corny as this sounds, it is true. That is what FIRST is really about. The founder of FIRST didn’t create the competition just to be about technology, but also to make young adults, like you and me, do quality thinking in a team with others.
All in all, FIRST was a great experience. Next year we will probably compete again, and there will be a Hawaii regional competition. I hope that you will consider either cheering us on in the bleachers or do some quality thinking with us.
Punahou's FIRST Team's Site
FIRST Site
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